can blow, witness our small Milbrook men of Cornwall, that ride it out at anchor, half seas over between England and Ireland, all the winter quarter.... For true it is, that the length of the cable is the life of the ship in all extremities. We carry our ordnance better than we were wont, because our nether overloops are raised commonly from the water, to wit, between the lower part of the port and the sea. We have also raised our second decks and given more vent thereby to our ordnance, tying on our nether overloop. We have added cross pillars in our royal ships to strengthen them, which be fastened from the kelson to the beams of the second deck. We have given longer floors to our ships than in elder times, and better bearing under water, whereby they never fall into the sea after the head and shake the whole body, nor sink stern, nor stoop upon a wind, by which the breaking loose of our ordnance or the not use of them, with many other discommodities are avoided.... And to say the truth a miserable shame and dishonour it were for our shipwrights, if they did not exceed all other in the setting up of our royal ships, the errors of other nations being far more excusable than ours.” Sir Walter was inaccurate in attributing all the improvements enumerated to his own generation; bonnets, for instance, were in use long before his day. Nevertheless his paper constitutes one of the most important contributions to the history of naval architecture in this country. In the early years of the century, too, evidence as to the shortcomings of contemporary naval construction was furnished by a fierce critic, Captain Waymouth. He proclaimed that English shipwrights built only by uncertain traditional precepts and observations; that none of them could build two ships alike or predict with accuracy their draught of water; that all their ships were crank, leewardly--“a great disadvantage in a fight”--difficult to steer and sail, too deep in the water, of less capacity than the Hollanders, and so badly built and designed as frequently to require “furring,” or reinforcing by extra planking. He advocated building ships longer, broader, with longer floors so as to reduce their draught, and snugger in respect of upper works. And though he failed on trial to translate his ideas into successful performance, his criticisms are accepted by historians as being probably well-founded.